Chapter 13
The Ahmadiyya
Movement
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The Ahmadiyya movement as the West sees it
/ Well-organised, intellectual movement /
The Ahmadiyya movement
as the West sees it
I will bring to a close this short study of the life of the founder
of the Ahmadiyya movement by considering two more questions - Was he
mad? Was he insincere? I have read a book recently written by an anonymous
Shi’a writer which ends with the considered view that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad
was a madman. A madman could not build a house or design a plan of the
building of a house, and yet we are asked in all seriousness to accept
it as a fact that the man who founded a movement and built up such an
important community as the Ahmadiyya, was a madman. To call such a man
mad is nothing but madness. I give a few brief quotations from recent
Western writers showing what the Ahmadiyya movement is:
"They are a very remarkable group in modern Islam, the only group
that has purely missionary aims. They are marked by a devotion, zeal
and sacrifice that call for genuine admiration . . . Their founder Mirza
Ghulam Ahmad must have powerful personality." (The Moslem World,
vol. xxi, p. 170)
"Their mental energy is concentrated on painting Islam as upholder
of broad, social and moral ideals." (Ibid)
"Their vindication and defence of Islam is accepted by many educated
Muslims as the form in which they can remain intellectually loyal
to Islam." (Op. cit., vol. xxi, p. 171)
"The Ahmadis are at present the most active propagandists of Islam
in the world." (Indian Islam, p. 217)
"The movement initiated by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad occupies a unique position
in relation to both the orthodox party and the rationalistic reformers
represented by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and his Neo-Mutazilite followers.
Ahmad himself declaimed bitterly against the professional Mullas of
Islam who kept people in darkness, who had allowed Islam to die of
formalism, who had not prevented the division into sects . . . At
the same time he could not tolerate the rationalising expositors of
Islam such as Syed Amir Ali and Prof. S. Khuda Bakhsh, who were beginning
to throw doubt on the Quran, as a perfect work of Divine revelation."
(Indian Islam, p. 222)
"Here we find the newest and most aggressive forms of propaganda
against Christianity which have ever originated, and from here a world-wide
programme of Muslim Foreign Missions is being maintained and financed.
(Op. cit., p. 229)
"This religious movement through its own dynamic force has attracted
wide attention and secured followers all over the world." (Whither
Islam?, p. 214)
"What is of more interest to the outside world than the beliefs of
either branch and their relations with the orthodox is the vigorous
life and the fervent missionising character of the movement." (Op.
cit., p. 217)
"The doctrine of the Ahmadiyya is of a highly ethical character,
and it directs itself particularly towards the intellectuals." (Whither
Islam?, p. 288)
"How movements like the Ahmadiyya with its strong ethical powers
and its no doubt deep religious feelings are able to exercise a certain
influence beyond what are so far considered to be the frontiers of
Muslim territory." (Op. cit., p. 309)
"To it also belongs the credit for the development of a modern Moslem
apologetic which . . . is far from negligible." (Op. cit.,
p. 353)
"The movement resolved itself mainly into liberal Islam with the
peculiarity that it has definitely propagandist spirit and feels confident
that it can make an appeal to Western nations, an appeal which has
already been made with some measure of success." (Islam at the
Cross-roads, p. 99)
Well-organised,
intellectual movement
Can any sane person for a moment entertain the idea that a madman could
bring to life such a strongly-organised, vigorous and rational movement?
The second question is - was he insincere? Here again I ask the reader
to consider if an insincere man could produce such devoted and sincere
followers? Insincerity could give birth only to insincerity, and it
is the height of folly to call a man insincere who gathers about himself
not only devoted and sincere but also intelligent men who are admittedly
the best Muslim missionaries today, and who are leading an admittedly
intellectual movement. Moreover, the whole course of Ahmad’s life from
early youth shows that he was devoted to the cause of the propagation
of Islam. Again, an insincere man could not but have some ulterior motive,
but the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement cannot be shown to have any
such motive. After all, what did he gain by this so-called insincerity?
He was at the height of his fame when he laid claim to Promised Messiahship,
and he sacrificed by this claim the reputation which he had built for
himself during half a century. An insincere man would have done his
best to retain the fame which he had acquired and the honour in which
he was held. Nor did he make any estate for himself. On the other hand,
when he was informed that his end was nigh, he at once constituted a
society to which he entrusted complete control of management and of
finances. He did not care for the acquisition of either wealth or honour,
and sincerity marks every step that he took for the building up of the
cause of the propagation of Islam, even every word that he wrote. If
such a man could be insincere, truly the world must have become devoid
of sincere men!
THE END
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